Partly because they’re coming to town tomorrow and partly because of my general demeanor, I’ve had pirates on the mind recently. I’ve been thinking about how they operated and, most interestingly, when a pirate group can be considered to have risen to the status of being a state unto itself.
There are a lot of misconceptions about pirates, mostly stemming from the specific pirates that we talk about most often. Right now, you’re thinking of pirates like Blackbeard, Jack Rackham, and William Kidd. Or maybe you’re thinking of fictional pirates like Jack Sparrow, Edward Kenway, and Guybrush Threepwood.